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Don’t look now but the election is here. People are voting across the country as we begin the wait to see who will win one of the most tumultuous elections in modern American history.
Polls show that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are neck and neck, that it’s going to be a nail-biter for the country and that voters are going to hit a record number.
What we’re going to see now, though, is what voters want for the country. And, like it or not, whom you vote for is a clear signal that you support everything about the candidate. Everything.
Vote for Trump, and you stand behind everything about him and his MAGA movement. Vote for Harris, and you support her governing record and progressive tendencies. It’s with that in mind that I decided to ask the USA TODAY Opinion Gen Z columnists to tell us what they think a vote for Harris or Trump says about what you are willing to abide.
Dace Potas, a conservative, will tell you about Harris and what voting for her means. Sara Pequeño, a progressive, will tell you about Trump and what a vote for him means you embrace.
Voting for Harris? You’re fine with a failed immigration plan and a ramp-up of progressive ideology.
If you vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, you are voting for the record of the past four years. You are voting for a continued illegal immigration crisis, you are voting for reckless economic policies, and you are voting for four more years of incoherent foreign policy.
All of the progressive aspects of the Biden administration that have sunk his approval ratings are certain to continue under Harris, or worsen given her extremist history.
Harris was a key piece of the political machine hiding Biden’s declining competency from the American people. By admitting that the president wasn’t capable of running for reelection, Democrats have admitted that Harris must have had a larger role in the administration than it seemed.
Harris should be losing to Trump. But Republicans made the wrong choice.
I’ll be the first to say that Trump is a genuine danger to America, but in my opinion Harris poses a comparable threat. Our enemies abroad are taking every chance they can to expand their influence, even taking direct action against our allies. Our economy at home has strained the wallets of working-class Americans. Our border is overwhelmed by migrants, and Harris has been in the administration for four years doing little to help.
Even progressives, Harris’ true base of voters, ought to have trouble reconciling her attempts to moderate herself as an Israel-supporting, gun-owning, pro-police Democrat.
Harris has changed her positions so much that supporters from her 2020 presidential campaign would barely recognize her platform at this point.
I’m not voting for Trump or Harris. As much as I disagree with Trump and think he ought to be precluded from holding public office, the alternative the Democrats have provided gives me no reason to cross the aisle and vote for Harris.
I understand voting against Trump, but Harris voters need to be honest about what they’re supporting: four more years of the same dysfunctional policies at home and abroad.
A vote for Trump means you’re comfortable with election lies and having a felon as a president
I have spent my entire life around Republicans. I know there is a subsect of the GOP that will never hear me out about Trump. But I choose to believe there is a larger group within the GOP who know, deep down, exactly what a second Trump presidency would do to the country they love and the political party they support.
I understand that many of you may remember parts of the Trump presidency fondly, or at least tolerably. As you drive to your polling place, I hope you remember who Trump really is. And if you decide to vote for him, at least be honest on how that vote fully supports who he is.
In 2019, Trump was impeached for pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on a political rival. He has blamed Zelenskyy for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has refused to commit to supporting the country in the war. He has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, invited Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán to Mar-a-Lago and claims to get along with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Opinion:Young women have become more liberal. How could we not be?
At the end of his presidency, Trump left us with a still-thriving COVID-19 pandemic and 400,000 dead Americans. He helped incite an attack on the U.S. Capitol on one of his last days in office. Several people, including police officers, died in connection with that riot. He has since called the riot “peaceful.” He still refuses to say he lost the 2020 election.
Trump also left behind three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. He has bragged about this.
In May, he was found guilty by a New York jury of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He’s a convicted felon.
A vote for Trump is an endorsement of his tariff plan, which economists say would harm the global economy and cost consumers. It is a vote for portions of Project 2025, the 922-page Heritage Foundation blueprint for a second Trump presidency that he swears he knows nothing about.
None of that gets into all of the uptick in the racist and hateful rhetoric that he seems to think his voters want to hear.
Voting for Trump is voting for another four years of chaos. Who knows if the United States can survive it.
Ultimately, voters will decide who gets the White House
After years of voters being told what to be afraid of and which presidential candidate is the worst for the future of the country, it’s finally time to just decide.
Will voters pick Harris and her progressive ways? Will Trump take back the White House and take MAGA with him? We’re going to find out soon enough after voters look at these candidates and decide which they support and which they align themselves with.
It’s time to pick. Just be honest about what your pick says.
